Clarendon House Publications

18/12/2025

NEW RELEASE FROM CLARENDON HOUSE PUBLICATIONS!
Poetica # 27: An Inner Circle Writers' Group Poetry Anthology
https://www.clarendonhousebooks.com/anthologies

There is a common assumption among poets and readers generally that ‘There is no market for poetry.’ I hear this regularly.
This idea arises because, in the big world of publishing, poetry is seen to be a private, highly subjective affair which correspondingly does not sell well. Personal tastes, obscurity of form, and lack of poetic craft all add up to poetry being ‘shoved into the corner’ and usually only self-published or produced as a vanity piece.
This is a shame. There are a great many good poets out there: thousands of voices whose passionate visions of reality are not finding a proper outlet. Without channels to transmit these visions to readers, they can eventually fall silent.
The effort of this series of Poetica anthologies is to contribute to the creation of a market for poetry throughout the calendar year. The idea is that, by providing a regular, published venue for poetry from all over the world, poems as media for the communication of important and heartfelt ideas and reflections will gain in respect and become more widely acknowledged. Voices will be heard; channels will be opened.

Poetica # 27 features the work of DJ Elton, Michelle Chermaine Ramos, Jacek Wilkos, Hanna Biali, Tony Fyler, Craig Richard Tickner, Sultana Raza, Trish Parkinson, Peter Kenny, David Painter, Gabriella Balcom, Fhen M., Afshan Aqil , Debby Hackbarth, Kerri Jesmer, Giuseppina Marino Leyland, Jim Bates, the Birch Twins, Tim Law, Linda M. Crate, Mike Turner, Gareth Macready, Aminath Neena, Allan Edward Tierney, Justin Wiggins, Jan McCulloch, Anahit Arustamyan, Suranjit Gain, Linda Sparks, John Grey, Dawn DeBraal, Catherine A. MacKenzie, John Drudge, Kelli J Gavin and Michal Reiben.
Grab your paperback or Kindle version here:
https://www.clarendonhousebooks.com/anthologies

18/12/2025

I think it’s peculiar that we read books usually long before we get to know anything about their authors. Sometimes we never find out anything significant about the person behind the story. In most cases, who the author is probably has little significance in the long run to the impact of the tale itself, and the biography of the author shouldn’t be the focus of a study of the story, but it still strikes me as odd that we are quite prepared to take on board entire manuscripts in the form of works of fiction before we have the faintest idea of ‘where they have been’, as it were…

I think it’s peculiar that we read books usually long before we get to know anything about their authors. Sometimes we never find out anything significant about the person behind the story. In most cases, who the author is probably has little significance in the long run to the impact of the tale ...

17/12/2025

It’s hard to recollect much about it now, and I was more or less unaware of it then, but for half of my life the future of the world lay under a nuclear shadow…

It’s hard to recollect much about it now, and I was more or less unaware of it then, but for half of my life the future of the world lay under a nuclear shadow. From the Allies development of the atomic bomb in 1945, and its subsequent acquisition by the Soviet Union soon afterwards, the entire pl...

16/12/2025

Let’s assume you’ve read my book How Stories Really Work - shameless plug - and that you have your characters and plot sorted out so that the basic shape and flavour of the story is there. How else can you improve things?
https://www.clarendonhousebooks.com/single-post/4-ways-to-add-value-to-a-story-with-some-dickens-as-an-example-1

15/12/2025

If you were to sit down right now and write, what would you write about?

For those of you who have a work ongoing, you might simply want to continue with the next scene or portion that needs writing; for those of you who harbour a desire to be a writer but who haven’t yet made it happen to any degree, you might sit there and ponder what to do until time sweeps the opportunity away. So for the moment, whether you are writing something already or haven’t started, put things aside and look at a piece of blank paper or a page on a screen and think about where you would start a new work.

This is another unusual approach, which you can use or dismiss as you see fit, but one way of getting started would be this…

If you were to sit down right now and write, what would you write about? For those of you who have a work ongoing, you might simply want to continue with the next scene or portion that needs writing; for those of you who harbour a desire to be a writer but who haven’t yet made it happen to any deg...

13/12/2025

Much of my experience as a writer, editor and publisher suggests that many people write out of a compulsion to do so. They may not write often (though they often wish that they could) and they may not write much (though they are usually desperate to write more) but the impulse to write seems to have a largely unconscious source. They simply feel that they ‘must’ write. Not being able to do so for whatever reason is a kind of pain to them…

Much of my experience as a writer, editor and publisher suggests that many people write out of a compulsion to do so. They may not write often (though they often wish that they could) and they may not write much (though they are usually desperate to write more) but the impulse to write seems to have...

12/12/2025

Your weekly newsletter is here!
https://www.clarendonhousebooks.com/single-post/your-weekly-newsletter-is-here-165

12/12/2025

You will probably have read plenty of quotes along the line of ‘If you want to be a writer, you have to write.’ Right?

Stephen King said something of the sort and many others did too. The basic idea is that dreaming about being a writer is one thing, but actually doing it is something else. Sitting down in a chair and writing, though it can lead to a few problems, is far better than doing nothing at all. But there are things to watch out for on that route…

You will probably have read plenty of quotes along the line of ‘If you want to be a writer, you have to write.’ Right? Stephen King said something of the sort and many others did too. The basic idea is that dreaming about being a writer is one thing, but actually doing it is something else. Sitt...

11/12/2025

CHRISTMAS GIFT RELEASE FROM CLARENDON HOUSE!

Hi!

My name’s Alexander Marshall and I’ve published seven books this year, namely:

•The Phantom Sword of Rondar
a fantasy thriller set in the world of The Sword Sundergost (which I published in 2021)
•three volumes of the Raven Stark: Hyperean Wars series (The Return of Captain Invincible, Spectrebrood and The Hand of Psion)
superhero adventures which take place during the Second World War
• Winter’s Door
a children’s fantasy also set during the Second World War
• The Shattered Stone
a Western adventure
and
• The Genetian
a science fantasy.

All of these books are available through this webpage:
https://www.clarendonhousebooks.com/alexander-marshall

Though I had made notes for some of these books earlier, the actual composition, writing and publishing all took place in 2025.
No AI whatsoever was involved in their writing. It was all me, my laptop, and the procedures described in this little e-book!

You can get your copy through the Christmas issue of the Inner Circle Writers’ Magazine available here:
https://www.clarendonhousebooks.com/magazine

Having published seven books this year alone, I thought other writers might be interested in how I go about it.

Get ready for a rocket ride which could transform your writing career!

Any questions? I can be contacted via Clarendon House Publications at
[email protected]

-Alexander Marshall

11/12/2025

ISSUE # 83 IS HERE!
THE INNER CIRCLE WRITERS' MAGAZINE!
Merry Christmas!
https://www.clarendonhousebooks.com/magazine
Your special Christmas gifts are on page 6 - a brand-new short guide to writing novels super-fast without any use of AI whatsoever, and much more!
In an issue jammed with festive delights, we have an interview with the wonderful and award-winning author Sharon Frame Gay, plus Christmas fiction from Tobias Green and Alexander Marshall and Charles Dickens, as well as another fabulous chapter of E. E. Nesbit’s classic The Railway Children!
You’ll also find enlightenment in another chapter from Fictivity, and more about the Laws of Spamming - and there’s a Christmas Literary Quiz on page 50!
The very best wishes of the season to you all!
Enjoy!
https://www.clarendonhousebooks.com/magazine

11/12/2025

If you are aiming to make a living as a writer, your success depends on your ability to produce a piece of writing - and probably many pieces of writing - that others want to read. Readers pay you for this work so you can live. Let's call this work your product.

The more impactful, popular and well-known your product is, the more money you earn. Becoming ‘well-known’ has to be part of it: no point in writing a masterpiece if no one has heard of it. It’s mind-boggling to imagine how many works of fiction have been written but have never seen the light of day. Even the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, known the world over now, were for many years a private hobby until the children’s story The Hobbit provided the key to a wider public.

But what if you cannot produce a particular product? What if you are a romance writer who cannot sell a short story? A writer of family sagas who can never complete a manuscript? A children’s author who cannot find inspiration?

If you are aiming to make a living as a writer, your success depends on your ability to produce a piece of writing - and probably many pieces of writing - that others want to read. Readers pay you for this work so you can live. Let's call this work your product. The more impactful, popular and well-...

10/12/2025

There’s a lot of talk these days about the ‘freedom of the press’ and the power of the media. It’s probably even more important today to recognise what we are talking about in relation to these things than it ever has been.

We all seek meaning. As human beings, we are on a quest, knowingly or not, to find significance and shape in the events of our day. On a small scale, we try to put order into our immediate surroundings and day-to-day routines; on a larger scale we turn to religion or art to try to see patterns and threads in the wider world. Some of us become writers or artists in order to project value or importance of some kind into the world at large.

Some of us become journalists…

There’s a lot of talk these days about the ‘freedom of the press’ and the power of the media. It’s probably even more important today to recognise what we are talking about in relation to these things than it ever has been. We all seek meaning. As human beings, we are on a quest, knowingly o...